Turkey to US: Invite IS to Syria talks

ANKARA, Turkey (Kurdistan24) – The United States should be inviting the Islamic State (IS) if the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) joins the Syria peace talks, protested Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Saturday.

Cavusoglu’s remarks were in response to the US Department of State officials who recently suggested Syrian Kurds, including the PYD labeled a terror group by Turkey, should have their place in a peace process.

“[The US] must stop its collaboration with the terrorist organization. If you are going to invite this terror group, then invite al-Nusrah, invite [IS] as well. Is such a farce acceptable?” Cavusoglu asked at a press conference following his meeting in Ankara with Turkish ambassadors.

“Let me say it clearly, the weapons [the US] give to the YPG are at the hands of the PKK,” claimed Cavusoglu, according to Kurdistan24’s Ankara Bureau.

Turkey argues PYD’s armed wing, the US-backed People’s Protection Units (YPG), is the Syrian extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which is locked in a decades-long guerrilla warfare against Turkish troops over government repression of Kurdish rights.

On the other hand, the US provides air support and arms shipments in the context of degrading and destroying the IS to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition of local forces whose primary component is the YPG.

Last Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said the PYD “at some point” had to be part of Syrian peace talks.

“Unfortunately, although we explain to them a lot, the current [Obama] administration is committing serious mistakes as it is leaving,” added Cavusoglu.

The Minister also restated the PYD would not be participating in upcoming Russo-Turkish sponsored Syria talks in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana.

“What are they going to negotiate? Are they going to say, we want this much of Syrian land, and also give me the places with oil and other natural resources, let the rest be yours?” Cavusoglu asked.

The rise of another Kurdish-controlled statelet on its southern border after the Kurdistan Region has alarmed a Turkey afraid of similar aspirations by its some 20 million-strong Kurdish population.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany